Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1887-03-05
TENEMENT CIGARS. !
sIcKENlNo SCENES AMONG THE
clTYs cleARMAkERs. !

Helen Campbcr's story Of the Children
at Work in the Tenement Houses Of
New YorlS-Disease and Death In tho
Leaf
II is to the cigar making trade that
women and girls turn during the duh
season, and one finds in II representatives
from every trade in which women are en-
gagged The sewing women employed In
suit and clothing manufactures during
the busy season have no resource save
this, and thus prices are kept down and
the regular cigarmakers constantly re-
enforced by the irregular. In the present
case 1t was chiefly with regular makers
that the house was filed, one room,
little less than twelve by fourteen feet,
holding family of seven persons, three
of them children under 10, all girls. To-
bacco lay In piles on the floor and under
the long table at one end where the cigars
were rolled, its rank smell dominating
that from the sinks and from the general
filth, not only of this room but of the
house as q whole. Two of the children
sat on the floor stripping the leaves, and
another on small stool A girl of 20 sat
near them, and all alike had sores ON lips
and cheeks and ON the hands.
THE LITTLE TOTS AT WORK.
Children from 8 or @ years up can be
| taught to strip and thus add to the weeks
income, which Is far less for the tenement
house manufacture than for regular fac
tory work, the latter averaging from 50
to $12 week. But the work II done at
home can be made to include the entire
family and some 1000 women are engaged
| in II, an almost equal but unregistered
number of young children sharing 1t with
them. As in sewing, number of women
often club together, using one room, and
| in such cases their babies crawl about in
the filth on the wet floors, playing with
the damp tobacco and breathing the poison
with which the room is saturated.
Here, as in tobacco factories, women
and girls of every age become speedily tho
victims of nervous and hysterical COM
| plants, the direct result of nicotine poi.
soning, while succeeding these come con-
sumption and throat diseases resulting
| from the dust. Canker Is one of the most
frequent difficulties, and sores of many
orders. the trade involving more dangers
than any that can be chosen. Yet because
an entire family can find occupation In IL,
| with no necessity for leaving home, 1t is
| often preferred to easier employment. 1t
Is the children who suffer most, growth
being stunted, nervous disease developed
and ending often In st. Vitus' dance, and
skin diseases of every order being the rule,
the causes being not only tobacco but the
filth in which they live.
THE POISON OF PREPARATION.
1t is doubtful If the most inveterate
smoker would feel much relish for the
cigar manufactured under such condi-
| tions, yet hundreds of thousands go out
| yearly from these houses, bearing In every
leaf the poison Of their preparation. In
this one house nearly thirty children of all
ages and sizes, babies predominating
rolled In the tobacco which covered the
floor and was piled in every direction, and
of these children under 10 thirteen were
strippers and did their days work Of
ten hours and more Physical degenera-
tion in its worst forms become inevitable.
Even the factory childworker fares better,
for In the factory there is exercise and the
going to and from work. while in the ten
ement house cigar making the worn out
little creatures crawl to the bed, often
only o pile Of rags in the corner, or lie
down on heap Of the tobacco itself,
breathing the poison day and night unin-
terruptedly.
Vices of every order flourish In srch air,
and morality in this trade is at the lowest
ebb. Nervous excitement is so intense
that necessarily nothing but immortality
can result, and the child of 8 or 10 is as
gross and confirmed an offender as the full
grown man or woman. Diligent search
discovers few exceptions to this rule, and
the whole matter has reached q stage
where Legislative interference is absolutely
indispensable. Only in forbidding tene-
ment house manufacture absolutely can
there be any safety for either consumer or
producer. Campbell in New York
Tribune